


coded

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 10:22:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17486369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: phil considers a new background for his videos





	coded

Phil’s knees press into the mattress. They’re bracketing Dan’s waist and he can feel sweat in the pits of them where thigh and calf are pressed together. 

He’s looking down at Dan’s face but Dan’s not looking back up. Dan gave up looking a while ago, arm thrown over his eyes, teeth biting down into his bottom lip harshly. He groans when Phil’s hips rock forward a little, a grinding motion that does nothing much for Phil but is slowly driving Dan mad.

Phil loves that. He could do that all day. The power of it is dizzying, feeling Dan’s pretty cock nestled deep in his body and riding against it with purpose. His palms press flat against Dan’s chest for leverage as he lifts his ass up and slides it back down on Dan’s hardness, aided by too much lube and an eagerness to watch Dan’s head tilt back against his pillow.

It doesn’t matter that Phil gets his pleasure from other things, that being filled up doesn’t make him squirm like it does for Dan. Phil doesn’t love bottoming for the reasons he thinks other blokes like bottoming, or at least not for the reasons Dan does. It’s not going to make him come. 

But it still makes him feel good, and they’ve been doing this long enough that he’s at peace with the reasons why. It’s a different kind of good than the good that makes his toes curl and his mind go blank with the brief but all-encompassing pleasure of an orgasm. And it’s more than just the pleasure that comes from satisfying his partner.

Bottoming makes Phil feel secure. It validates an identity he’s not always allowed to express.

It makes him feel gay.

Riding Dan’s cock makes him feel so wonderfully, unequivocally gay. There’s no room for ambiguity or plausible deniability in the bedroom he shares with another man, no two ways about his queerness when he and Dan are naked and inside each other. 

He reaches down for Dan’s free hand and pulls it up to press against his own chest. Dan’s thumb finds Phil’s nipple like an instinct and Phil hums his approval. That feels good, a twinge of something tingly in his stomach. He lifts up again though his thighs are starting to burn from the effort. 

“Why don’t we do this more?” Dan groans, hand moving down from Phil’s chest to cup his soft cock. “We should always be doing this.”

Phil just makes a deep, quiet laughing sound in the back of his throat. Dan likes to talk, and most of it is nonsense when they’re in the throes. He’s half lost in a world of heat and hormones and carnality right now and Phil’s just enjoying the show. 

Sometimes a dark part of Phil’s brain thinks Dan is better at being queer than he is, even though Phil’s got a few years practice on him and less of a reputation for angry denial. In his clear headed moments Phil knows that’s bullshit, that it’s not a competition, and their glass closet doesn’t make them any less queer. Just because Phil’s glass is a little less translucent than Dan’s at times doesn’t make him any less gay.

But he isn’t always clear headed. Sometimes anxious thoughts take hold and drag him down into spirals of identity crisis, into thinking maybe he isn’t really allowing himself to be _himself_.

Dan’s big hands wrap around Phil’s hips and squeeze. He’s helping Phil along, encouraging him without being pushy to go a little faster, ride a little harder.

It’s hot. He likes Dan’s hands on him like that: assertive, confident. He tries to do it exactly how Dan likes but his quads are burning and there’s sweat gathering along his hairline. He’s tired. He’s getting too old to fuck like this.

He leans down so they’re chest to chest and finds Dan’s mouth with his to lick into it, to bite at Dan’s lips and breathe heavy against his face. “Fuck me,” he says in the lowest tone he’s got.

Dan doesn’t need to be asked twice and Phil is endlessly grateful that Dan’s feeling energetic enough tonight to take over on the hard part. He squeezes Phil’s hips tight to hold him in place and fucks up with a pace that’ll get him where he wants quickly.

This is who he is, Phil thinks. He’s a man who loves a man. He’s a man who gets fucked by a man, who buries his face in a man’s neck and kisses and sucks there because he knows how much that man likes it. It doesn’t matter if the thing that makes him feel most like himself is something he can’t share with other people. Surely that doesn’t make his identity any less valid.

He has no desire to spend time in gay bars or deck himself out in rainbows for solidarity. He doesn’t paint his nails or wear women’s jumpers or have any real interest in makeup beyond finding the tutorials relaxing sometimes. 

He likes it when Dan wears nail polish. He likes it when Dan walks around the house in nothing but pants and hoodies. He likes the look of cocks and balls and abs and strong jaws and broad shoulders. He likes having sex with Dan and looking at blokes, but those things only live in his head and his bedroom and sometimes that makes it feel a little less real than he’d like.

Maybe it’s something about getting older. Maybe it’s something to do with the time of year and Dan’s laser focus on character growth and betterment. They’re meant to be setting intentions, making plans. They’re thinking about what they accomplished last year and what’s in store for them now. Who do they want to be in twenty nineteen? 

Usually it’s Dan who ends up face first on the floor at thoughts like this, moaning about nihilism and the inherent futility of it all. Maybe this year it’s Phil’s turn. 

He’s not quite there yet. He just can’t shake the feeling that he’s not where he should be.

He’s in his thirties now, but sometimes it feels like he’s missing out on the best parts of growing up. He can’t watch Corn and Martyn renovate their flat without a twinge of jealousy that he and Dan aren’t free to own their own home together without worrying about what it will look like to people on the outside. They don’t spend Christmas together. They can’t even adopt a bloody dog. 

“I’m gonna come,” Dan pants. His arms are hooked under Phil’s and his hands grip the back of his shoulders and he’s pounding in and in and in and somehow Phil’s thinking about the tiles his brother and his brother’s girlfriend chose for their bathroom.

He’s still thinking after Dan’s finished and pulls the condom off his cock. He ties it off, dropping it on the floor to be dealt with when his whole body isn’t awash with oxytocin and endorphins. Phil doesn’t want to be thinking right now. This is his favourite part, the part where they’ve taken turns taking care of each other and get to bask in the warm sleepy aftermath with their arms wrapped around each other. 

“I’m sweating,” Phil groans. 

Dan’s response is grunted and incoherent as he flops down next to Phil. He’s sweating too. He reaches for his phone and pulls the covers up over them both. “You gonna shower?” he asks.

Phil can see that he’s scrolling through his twitter feed. It’s familiar and oddly comforting. He yawns and stretches his arms and legs until something makes a satisfying popping sound. “Nah. Too much effort.”

“Lazy,” Dan murmurs, not taking his eyes off the little screen in his hand. He wriggles back a little until his ass presses against Phil’s hip. 

Phil just hums and drops a kiss to Dan’s shoulder and closes his eyes. It’s late and his body is as tired as his brain. 

-

“I think I want a new background for my videos.”

Dan looks up from his cereal, one eyebrow raised, a spot of milk dribbling down his chin. He wipes it against the sleeve of his hoodie and says, “Yeah?”

Phil shrugs. “Want it to feel more like me, right?”

Dan nods cautiously.

“So. That room doesn’t really feel like me anymore.”

“What would?” Dan asks. “What feels like AmazingPhil in twenty nineteen?”

Phil shakes his head and looks down at his coffee. “Don’t want it to feel like AmazingPhil anymore. I want it to feel like me.”

When he looks up Dan is smiling. “I like that.”

“Good,” Phil says, looking away from the sincerity on Dan’s face. Even after all these years he’s still capable of feeling embarrassed by vulnerability sometimes. He clears his throat and drinks some coffee and says, “So help me think of ideas please.”

“Me?”

“You’re the king of aesthetics or whatever,” Phil says, waving a hand dismissively. 

“Ok, I’m thinking… fully decked out lion fur suit and a framed collage of male Marvel cast members’ nipples?”

Phil picks up a scrap of toast crust and lobs it right at Dan’s face. “I hate you.”

Dan manages to dodge it as he cackles. “I think it describes you perfectly.”

“It describes your mum perfectly.” He gets up and dumps his dishes in the sink for Dan to deal with later. “I’m going to shower,” he says, turning back to give Dan the stink eye. “You sit here and think about what you’ve done, young man.”

Dan grins and Phil cringes; he already knows exactly what Dan’s about to say.

“Yes dad.”

-

“Do you think anyone still thinks I’m straight?”

He’s got to stop doing this. He’s got to stop blurting things out at such random times with no warning. 

Dan looks at Phil across the sofa. Phil’s legs are stretched out, his feet resting comfortably in Dan’s lap. 

“Mate,” Dan says, then looks back at the telly when the sound of machine gun fire explodes somewhere nearby. Phil hopes Fortnite will be enough to distract him from remembering Phil had said anything in the first place. 

Phil just lies there and watches. His eyes watch Dan’s game and his mind drifts to the thoughts he can’t seem to shake lately, big questions he usually avoids pondering for any real length of time.

He can’t seem to stop now. He’s hyperfixating, about the background and sexuality and the meaning of his life and what the future looks like and whether or not he should stop dying his hair and let the ginger grow out. He feels like he finally understands what Dan’s been on about for years with existential crises.

Dan dies in the game. He drops the controller and turns to give Phil his full attention. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Why do you care if people think you’re straight?”

Phil rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say I care. I’m just asking if you think they do.”

“I’m sure some of them do,” Dan says, putting on his cautious voice again, like Phil’s a wild animal that might get spooked at any moment and claw Dan’s eyes out or something. “And lots of them don’t.”

“Right.”

Dan wraps his hand around Phil’s foot, the one with disappearing foxes. He squeezes, probably to make sure Phil’s paying attention. “Why’re you weird?”

Phil shrugs. “M’not.”

Dan narrows his eyes, studying Phil’s face. “What is happening? You’re not _actually_ going to make a coming out vid, are you?”

“No!” He digs the toes of his free foot into the soft flesh of Dan’s inner thigh, just for good measure. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“You’re an idiot,” Dan counters, swatting Phil’s foot away.

“Your face is an idiot.”

Dan smiles. “You like my idiot face.”

“Maybe,” Phil grumbles reluctantly. 

“And… you feel weird that people don’t know that?” Dan’s voice pitches up nervously at the end, like it does when he thinks Phil might be genuinely cross.

“No. I don’t feel weird. There’s no weird.”

Dan closes both hands around Phil’s foot now, massaging gently. “But you’re thinking about what people think.”

Phil shrugs. “You do it all the time.”

“And you don’t,” Dan points out. 

“I do. Just not as much as you.”

He’s not sure why he’s being an ass. Dan’s just trying to understand. Dan always wants to understand everything, but he especially wants to understand Phil. 

Maybe sometimes it makes Phil prickle. He doesn’t always want to be analyzed. Sometimes he just wants to have feelings, even if they don’t make sense even to himself.

“Is this about the background?” Dan asks. “Or something else?”

Phil sighs. Dan is pretty good at reading him. It’s stupid to try to resist that. “I dunno,” he mutters. “Both I guess.”

“Because Phil in twenty nineteen is definitely not straight,” Dan says softly, running a hand up the inside of Phil’s leg. He’s wearing his own branded pajamas, he can’t actually feel Dan’s skin, but it still feels nice to be touched like that.

“Definitely not straight,” Phil agrees. “But I never have been.”

“Sure. But you didn’t always want people to know that.”

Phil nods. 

“Anyone who’s paying attention knows.” Dan’s voice is velvety and warm and Phil suddenly wants very much to kiss him.

“C’mere,” he says, reaching out to pull him closer. Dan goes easily and lies down right on top of him.

“You’re not allowed to have a sexuality crisis now,” Dan teases. “I’m rather attached to you.”

“No crisis.” He reaches down and pats Dan’s ass. “You’re just getting to my head with all your new year crap.”

“Oi, it’s not crap.”

Phil tilts his face up and Dan responds exactly as Phil wants, leaning down to sink his mouth against Phil’s. It’s deep and wet from the get-go, also exactly what Phil was craving. Dan’s very _very_ good at reading him.

“It’s a little bit crap,” Phil murmurs. “I know who I am.”

“Deciding how to express it is almost as important as knowing it.”

Phil smiles a cheeky smile and pushes his hands under the band of Dan’s pants to squeeze his bare cheeks. “Reckon I express it just fine.”

Dan doesn’t take the bait. “You still want my help?”

“What?” He’s feeling a touch distracted now that he’s got all this _Dan_ on top of him.

“With your new background.”

“Oh. Yeah. Yes please.”

Dan smiles and pushes himself up off Phil’s body and then off the couch completely. Phil whines, making half hearted grabby hands as Dan walks away. 

“I’ve got research to do,” Dan says. 

-

“Isn’t it a bit…”

“What?” Dan asks, defensive already. They’re stood side by side analyzing the large framed piece Phil had just unboxed in the middle of the lounge.

“I dunno… cliché?” 

He’s braced for Dan’s wrath, but instead Dan says, “Yes. It is. That’s kind of the point.”

“Oh.”

“We’re trying to like… toe the line here,” Dan says.

Phil turns from the shock of colour to look at Dan’s face. “What line, exactly?”

“The line between Phil Lester and AmazingPhil.”

Phil nods and looks back to the art. He doesn’t hate it, it just isn’t anything like what he’d expected Dan to choose for him. Honestly it looks more like something he would’ve chosen for himself like five years ago, a series of technicolour bananas with even brighter backgrounds.

“It’s meant to be a transition,” Dan tells him. 

“Oh?”

“Ease people in,” Dan continues. “You can’t go from plushies and Bryony’s weird cats to like, artsy cocks.”

Phil snorts. “Who said anything about that?”

“You wanted something queer,” Dan says simply.

It’s rather an uncomfortable realization for Phil that he can still feel weird about stuff like this, even when it’s just him and Dan in the safety of their own home. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Phil’s teeth find the inside of his bottom lip to nibble at as he stares at the image repeated over and over on the print, a different color every time but always almost jarringingly vivid.

“It still kinda looks like artsy cocks,” he says quietly.

“That’s the point, Phil.” He’s trying to be patient, Phil can tell. “Andy Warhol was queer. Everyone knows that, yeah?”

Phil nods.

“And they’re, you know… phallic.”

Phil chuckles again. “Yeah.”

“But they’re bright. It’s pop-y and fun. Playful. Like AmazingPhil.”

“Oh,” Phil says, and then again, with something like understanding, finally, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit,” Phil murmurs. He feels like he’s looking at it with brand new eyes. “It’s perfect.”

Dan smiles, a hint of dimple denting his cheek. “Yes. It is.”

Phil reaches out and shoves him in the shoulder. “So modest.”

“Modesty is for cowards.”

Phil ignores him, crossing his arms over his chest and studying the art thoughtfully. “So we’re still going for colourful, then.”

“Could do,” Dan says. “Or this could be like, the one pop of color and you keep everything else muted, or black and white even. Like a nod to AP while communicating you’re ready for change.”

Phil looks at him again. “It’s annoying how good you are at this.”

Dan smirks. “There are many options for repayment.”

-

Phil’s fingers are a bit wobbly as he sets up the tripod. It’s annoying. He can already foresee how many takes he’ll have to do, how much extra work he’s making for himself when it comes time to edit. 

He checks to make sure the camera is focused. It is. It’s focused on a new sofa, small and white and bracketed by little black coffee tables on either side, one topped with simple white candles burning and the other a pretty marble pot from which tumbles green and white english ivy. 

Above the sofa hangs his Warhol, bold and bright and just the right amount of visibly queer for Phil in twenty nineteen. 

He sits down, takes a deep breath, and presses record.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to mandy for all her help on this one <3


End file.
